Bone tired, I help the others stack the supplies we're
carrying into a pile before making my way to an
unnocupied corner, sliding heavily to the ground.
Rest, I pray. Yet the very thought is nothing more
than another momentary impulse, and carries no real
expectation; struggling for survival on a constant
basis has distilled everything into simpler shades.
There is no middle ground anymore; it's either yes or
no, Them or us. Alive, or dead. I will rest, or I
won't.
More often than not these days, rest eludes me. More
often than not, wishing for anything is foolish—
hope is an illusory thing at best, and cruel at worst.
We have all learned the utter futility of prayers.
A flask is passed around, and I take a long draught of
it before passing it on, wincing as the harsh liquid
burns its way down my throat. The night's skirmish
left a number of us dead and broken by the side of the
road, and we all need the images to be dulled. There
are long hours ahead to be spent here in the dark,
away from the sun, keeping as silent as possible, and
the lack of stimulus has a way of making each memory
more vivid; but there's not sufficient liquor to make
us numb enough to forget, and we could not indulge
even if there was. We need to stay alert, have our
senses sharp when we walk out of here tonight to make
the next leg of our journey toward Home. We're
bringing back much needed food and medical supplies,
and there might be more fighting ahead. We know
They're looking for us.
I force myself to partake in a quick meal with the
others, for once glad that our rations are so meager.
And then I close my eyes, trying to relax. The only
sounds around are those of breathing, of bodies
shifting against the hard-packed earth in search of
more comfortable positions. Once or twice I hear
muffled sobs, but as my consciousness sinks into the
cracks between wakefulness and sleep, even those are
drowned out by the white noise of remembrance.
The ghosts of the dead rise to haunt me. They parade
behind my eyelids, some accusing, most of them
indifferent. I shy away from them all, strangers and
loved ones alike, refusing to let them hold any power
over me.
Their faces blur, their voices fade; limbs and mouths
and eyes all coalesce into one, until it's your
countenance I see, the color of your eyes the
unattainable green I know so well.
Alex. Inevitable that I would think of you.
All my roads have always led to you.
For most of your life, I denied you. In your death, I
cannot.
I miss you. Your departure carved a hole in me;
through it, you flow into me when the tide of grief is
high, receding with the ebb, though never completely.
The remembered rush of your blood pulses in me, a
latent presence, unceasing.
I wonder sometimes if death is the vast dark country
I've always imagined it to be. If it is, I know that
where you stand waiting for me a light shines—
having its bright source not on any star or lamp, but
on your very soul. Showing me the way back to you.
Your beacon is a fixed point in the darkness,
constant, enduring. As you are the fixed point in my
heart.
In the short time we had together, there was so much
we managed to do. In the long years before, there was
so much we missed experiencing.
We never went skinny dipping. We never watched a
baseball game. We never slept in a comfortable bed
together.
But you held me in the night when my nightmares came;
we held each other. You kissed me and whispered tender
words in my ear, you fought by my side and watched my
back, and you offered me freely that which you never
allowed anyone else to glimpse: yourself. All of you,
the truths and the lies and all the glorious nuances
in between. Not even They could rob you of your
complexity. You were beautiful until the end.
It's not surprising then that you are the only one
that can keep the memory of love alive in me. The
piece of me that is you is the only thing that still
gives me the strength to keep fighting.
Through the haze of heat and half sleep I sense
movement near me, and I open my eyes. Two of our band
rise to their feet and, falling into each other's
arms, start to sway together. It takes me a minute to
understand what they're doing.
Dancing.
The sight is incongruous, disorienting. We're in a
stinking hole in the ground, with no lights and no
music and hardly enough air, the enemy on our heels—
it's pathetic.
It's heartbreaking.
I close my eyes again, unable to stop the sting behind
my lids from translating into moisture. Slick and hot
as it rolls down my face.
I let it.
We never danced, Alex.
Someone shakes me, pulling me back from that
indistinct land of unrealized dreams. "Time to go."
"Yeah," I rasp, dragging myself up, stretching
painfully. I walk to the supplies' pile and heft my
share of the load, climbing out of shelter with the
others, sighing in relief as the clean night air fills
my lungs and strokes my skin. And for a second only, I
allow myself to believe it's the touch of your hand on
my face, the breath of your life sustaining my own.
I look up at the starry sky; framed by the canyon
walls, it reminds me of a river. All of us here
standing on the wrong side, waiting for our turn to
cross.
But no.
My soul is already halfway across the Styx; in the
darkest hours of day, I can hear Charon rowing, the
coins of the dead whispering to the murky waters as
they jingle in his pockets.
Soon, I feel, I will make landfall. Soon you will
welcome me back into your arms, and in our combined
melodies there will be such harmony that the shores of
every world will resound with it.
Soon.
For now, I fall into pace with the others, aware that
in this part of the voyage there is still a little
distance left ahead to be travelled.
I WENT INTO THE MAVERICK BAR
Two cowboys did horseplay
They held each other like in High School dances
We left —onto the freeway shoulders—
Travelling
by Marcia Elena
Dawn is only a faint promise in the sky by the time we
finally reach shelter, the high canyon walls keeping
us wrapped in shadows and hidden from enemy sight. The
air outside is still cool at this hour, making the
heat that greets me as I climb down into the small
enclosed space of this bunker feel all the more
stifling. The smell of so many bodies packed close
together, unwashed and bristling with fear and
exhaustion, is enough to make me dizzy, and for a
moment the impulse to turn around and brave the desert
and all its dangers is strong in me.
by Gary Snyder
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I'd left the earring in the car.
by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
"We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskokie"
And with the next song,
a couple began to dance.
in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness—
America-your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.
under the tough old stars—
In the shadow of bluffs
I came back to myself,
to the real work, to
"What is to be done."
